MIT - Design Thinking: Empathy Session

Empathy for our Students

Role Play

Once again we joined our buddies from the 5 Whys task as they knew our focus the best and could help with the role play.

I nearly burst out laughing in the middle of mine. Sarah and I had organised that she would be the student writing the typical weekend story.

Such as: In the weekend I went to the pools. I got wet and then we had lunch. Then we went home.

As I walked around the group of teachers watching I took a bit of liberty and asked another teacher what she had written and she said

"In the weekend I..."

As I hadn't discussed the conversation with this teacher.

I said, "Keeping writing, we will come back to the beginning shortly."

Learning my lesson I carried on to 'my student' and asked again.

"In the weekend we went to the shops," Sarah said proudly.

I asked, "How did you get there?"

"We walked."

"Could you start the story with Walking to the shops.."

I think this happens as children often write about their weekend to help build up writing mileage and it is an easy beginning to help younger students focus. I believe we need to teach them other ways to start writing by using verbs, onomatopoeia, questions...

Without these deliberate acts of teaching, we are expecting students to read our minds and guess the criteria we are using to mark their work against.

Our focus is on WHO?

Who has the problem? Why is this a problem for them?

We had to think about the students what to help. Who are they? What characteristics, strengths, dispositions do these people have that you presume will contribute to this situation.

MIT - Tweaking the Moonshot Proposal for 2020

Modifying the Proposal

After the 'Board Meeting', we were given the opportunity to tweak or redefine our moonshot proposal.

The teacher who played 'the lawyer' was my first port of call. She had made an appropriate criticism about my proposal:

"I want to improve boys writing by helping them to write interesting and descriptive stories." (or thereabouts)

The valid point she made was she wanted her children to be able to write descriptively but not just imaginative stories. In fact, she qualified the comment with not everyone will write a book. I want them to be able to argue a point or share their point of view in detail.

As a writer, I knew I didn't want to repeat the same words so I originally changed the last word to stories from writing. But I could see her point and agreed stories was too specific for the proposal.

I also realised it is not just about what I want, but about what the students and parents want.

MIT - Design Thinking: Discovery Session

Role Play

The Board informed the Community of the Focus for the Strategic Plan

This was an interesting exercise. We had to pretend we were attending a meeting sharing the direction the school was heading. The Board Chairman was filling in for the Principal to explain the new direction with little information. We all had a different parental role, from immigrant, local hard-working single mothers to affluent lawyers and doctors who were unsure if this was the right place for their children and local tradespeople.

There was some polite but heated discussion as people tried to fulfil their roles in the community and gather information on the direction the school was heading.

 

 

Proposals for the direction of the school ranged from having a single focus to that of the whole school. Questions were asked regarding what teachers were doing in the class and how more able students were to achieve if their focus was only on the underachiever. As "the community", we tried not to blame others but when you thought you were doing the best for your child and you went through university and expected the same for your children you believed they were firmly grounded in the basics. So how were they being catered for?

Then there was the immigrant, who was quiet and didn't understand what the meeting was about. There was no consideration given to this person and why they didn't share their opinion. There was also the locals who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet who could be made to feel less regardless of ethnicity.

MIT - 5 Whys for Moonshot Proposal 2020

After creating our proposal for Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher we buddied up with another participant for the critical thinking stage of the proposal. Two heads critiquing are always better than one. We had to wait for each answer before asking the next question. Or we may find the question was answered. Trying to come up with 5 Why questions to help us dig deeper was challenging. One thing that made this process easier was using dynamic emails, as you could access the whole conversation in a larger form in Gmail, without having to open the link to the slide and scroll through the comments.

The 5 Whys

Is a repetitive interrogative process,used to explore the cause and effect relationship underling a particular problem. The method has no hard and fast rules about what lines of questions to explore, or how long to continue the search for additional root causes. Thus, even when the method is closely followed, the outcome still depends upon the knowledge and persistence of the people involved.

My problem is - Engaging Year 5 boys with writing.

My buddy, Sarah asked some interesting questions, which helped me to dig deeper and made me think about the proposal. Am I asking the right question? Is this really the problem I need to address?

In our area children and families often speak in broken English. When writing we expect full sentences and a more formal register to be used. So as teachers we are teaching sentence structure to encourage full sentence and the use of more formal language but it can still be a challenge. Reading is often modelled more frequently, and teachers try to teach writing using formulas like, 

 In the weekend or Last week...

 It could be a hindrance to their creativity. However, without structured sentences (and sometimes with) the meaning of what they are trying to say can be lost. I was trying to read a piece of work yesterday and misinterpreted words partly because of spelling and partly because of the way the sentence was written. Personally, when including dialogue I love to have it written like they'd say it at home adding personal voice to the piece. We often use models from books which isn't necessary formal register but the structure is more formal. Especially as students learn the difference and understand as they get older, how to construct a sentence and the way they talk at school is different from how they talk at home.

 Our literacy is based on our inquiry so if we are investigating a scientific phenomenon, then we might look at reports on that area. Personally, I like to encourage students to write using imagination during this time too where they have to pretend they are in the spacecraft visiting the planet (or some such). I wondered if teachers find teaching this sort of writing (report/ transactional) easier as there is a formula to the writing. Whereas the narrative is slightly less, although is you through in a problem growth of character, twist and the final solution you can write a narrative using a formula. Maybe it is because it can be so personal and we don't want to judge the content we find this type of writing more challenging to teach.

I do believe some students struggle to use their imagination. There are many possible reasons for this it can be harder to teach. "Close your eyes and imagine," if it is not something they do often, they won't get it. Life has changed and although students may roam streets they are not playing up trees, making huts, dressing up and meeting a range of people (sometimes this may happen through experiences at school). Personally have read a lot and being exposed to different experiences throughout a long life these experience make it easier. Students are being encourage to read a wider range but this doesn't happen until they can read fluently. (Which is fine) And their life experiences can be limited, as they can spend numerous hours in front of the Xbox, PlayStation etc, hindering the opportunities to use and stimulate their imagination at times.

I do believe it is a skill that can help in many situations. By using their imagination they could be the next great inventor creator of a vaccine or just a way to survive what life throws our/their way. They may even become a teacher and by using their imagination inspire the next generation. Not all through writing, however. But by learning to explore their imagination and develop the detail they are more likely to be prepared to think outside the box and be creative.

MIT - Moonshot Proposal for 2020

I want to create a proposal around writing but was unsure how to start until we were given the template for the Moonshot Proposal. I love the name because we encourage students to aim high so they may fall amongst the stars.

We have had to discuss the proposal with a buddy and look at a challenge to achievement we would like to reduce or eliminate. I am looking forward to developing this from a teacher's and a writer's perspective.